Bobtailing the XJ (sort of)

#1
Since I've come to the reality that I no longer care about the body :shaking: (to a certain extent), I can play around with some cool bumper ideas that don't involve protecting the hatchback door and taillights and will actually strengthen the rear portion of the unibody and at the same time improve departure angle about 4-5" over stock. What's worse than breaking a stock XJ taillight lens? replacing one and breaking it again. That's motivation enough. :la:

Plan for this is to start with a stick of 2x4 3/16" wall rectangle tube for the main bumper itself and utilize at least 4 of the stock bolt holes. I'll also be tying the rear portion of the cage into this and most of the surrounding sheet metal will be rosette welded and/or stitch welded to the bumper fully incorperating it into the body. I'll be adding angled pieces of 2x4" laying horizontally along the bottom of the cut rear quarters to act as skid plates. The rear quarter sheet metal will also get a small dove tail treatment. Recessed LED's will be taking place of the stock lights.

I'll skip photos of the tear down part. All that's done there is removing all bits and pieces of the rear bumper and brackets, cutting the rear quarter panels and doing away with the tail lights.

This is what I'm starting out with. This is mostly mock up. everything will eventually be capped and angled at the ends.
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More than likely I'll be adding D-ring tabs and reciever hitch to the back.
SU1HMDAxNzktMjAxMTA2MTMtMjAwMS5qcGc.jpg
 
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#4
I've put a bookmark in it for the moment. I've got the bumper made and fenders clearanced, I just need to decide how I want to do the cage and plan it to where I have no more than two days downtime. It was hard to put it back together the way it was but there's no substitute for wheelable. Its definately going to go through as planned.
 
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